Rachel Rushing

Christine Elfman is an MFA graduate from the California College of the Arts in San Fransisco. With an undergraduate background in painting, she also works in fibers and photography. Though she is just beginning her career, Elfman as already received several fellowships and solo exhibitions throughout the country. Through her work with the George Eastman House and work with other artists, she has taken a steeped interest in 19th century photographic processes.

©Christine Elfman

When approaching her work, I find Elfman to be deeply interested in the history of an object or a process. Desiring to remain faithful to an origin and heritage, her “inspiration to learn old crafts comes from an attraction towards intricacy visible in careful making rather than patina” (Lucas). When approaching Anthotype Dress- Pokeweed, Elfman was inspired by the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorn and was considering the ideas of the Fading Comittee, 1855, and the desire for permanence within photography. With her experience in historical processes, Elfman found “the Anthotype process is particularly striking; it yields a photograph that cannot be fixed. Not only does it contradict the goal of permanence, it is made out of impermanence” (Lucas). Several times Elfman has referenced the Focal Encyclopedia’s definition of the Anthotype:

“A process suggested by Sir John Herschel in 1842 that used the colored extracts and tinctures of flowers and vegetables to sensitize paper. Objects such as leaves, lace, and other thin materials were placed in contact with the sensitized paper and exposed to sunlight. Anthotypes were not fixed or stabilized, making them impossible to display except in night albums, for evening viewing.”

©Christine Elfman

©Christine Elfman

©Christine Elfman

©Christine Elfman

©Christine Elfman

©Christine Elfman

©Christine Elfman

©Christine Elfman

©Christine Elfman

Elfman’s work is full of beautiful dualities: permanence and impermanence, the destructive process of representation, the sacrifice of subject for the sake of the viewer.

Resources:
Christine Elfman
“Christine Elfman.” Interview by Kija Lucas, Black Boots Ink.
“Christine Elfman.” L E N S C R A T C H

For a while now photography has been a mystifying entity for me. Images of things that don’t belong, a woodland creature with a log cabin or little girls on adventures in unexpected places, keep me intrigued. I relish the stories that blend and whip together such unexpected ingredients. Part of that blending comes from craft. Images that blend ideas only conceptually don’t pull me in enough as a viewer to stay engaged (at least not right now). I mean, this is visual art, and the visual needs to be as thought out and interesting as the concept. Blending printing techniques and combining different crafts is a part of that visual stimulus that keeps a viewer engaged.

Alternative printing processes have been intriguing to me for a few years now. The way I see it, there are, basically, two types of photography. Either your image is meant to be a record or a print. ‘Recorded’ images stand alone and don’t rely on physical characteristics or printing techniques. Printed images, or ‘applied’ images are meant to be objects that utilize the physical photograph and apply new contexts to it. Relics, treasures, artifacts of human intellect and craftsmanship.

I guess for the next however-many years I get to start finding my own way of creating artifacts to communicate stories that engage people. I get to figure out my own way of combining photographic techniques with printmaking techniques, and who knows where I’ll stop!

Included in this post: Sebastiaan Bremer,  Shaun Kardinal, Joli Livaudais, Luis Dourado, Eduardo Recife, and Caitlin Parker